Small Mercies
by thaipothetical
Summary: For all the Hel they've been through, they deserve the quiet moments. One-shots set within the Sacrifices Universe. Hiccstrid.
1. Ceasefire

The sun was just rising and the tide was finally on its way out when her bare back hit the sand, bracketed between his arms.

_Finally_.

Their return to Berk had been guarded, at best. They gave as many details as were asked, presented a gift to the village - a small chest of gold from the last stockpiles of Drago's army - and kept to themselves. Or at least, that had been the plan.

It turned out that it was very hard for a future chief to keep entire to himself.

Stoick had roused Hiccup at dawn - even before Toothless woke - each morning since their return, and rarely let him go before midnight. Astrid was hardly left idle, as the resident dragon expert since her husband was busy mediating land disputes and trying to keep up with the fast changing arguments between each household on the island. She and Stormfly rarely had a moment alone to fly free around the island, or to chase the tips of black wings finally let free.

The reaction to her pregnancy had been mixed - Hiccup had made sure to present the valid document of their marriage as soon as they returned, before any rumours could fly about the way she refused ale and asked Tuffnut Thorston to sew her a looser tunic. Stoick had been ecstatic when she'd finally given up on emphatic looks and told him yes, they were expecting, but to not spread the news. She needn't have bothered - as soon as Stoick knew anything, Gobber knew it, and once Gobber knew, it was the village's business. It had hardly been an hour after Hiccup smoothed a hand over her stomach and nodded to his father respectfully that she'd heard the first buzz of excitement over a new heir.

That wasn't to say she was welcomed - rather, she was accepted by those who had taken the dragon way, and shunned by those who were still reluctant. For all the help the dragons gave - in fishing, during the harvest and when trade missions were needed - there were still half a dozen families who refused to bond with dragons themselves, choosing instead to reap the benefits of the beasts' labour and scorn them in public.

The Hoffersons were among that group.

She had been chopping wood outside the Chief's hall - where she and Hiccup were housed, and would be until the end of their days, most likely, since Stoick had sworn to leave the home as soon as there were children to disturb his sleep - when a flash of gold had caught her eye. She'd lowered her axe, resting her elbow on it, and made eye contact, both offering and daring approach.

Her mother had met her eyes, then turned away.

She hadn't cried - Astrid Hofferson hardly ever cried - but she had rested her hands on her own stomach that night in bed, and sworn that the family she had chosen was far better than the one she had been born to. Hiccup had been later than usual - stripping only his leathers to lie down beside her for a few hours rest before his father woke him again. She hadn't seen him this tired since she'd woken from her coma, and she wanted desperately to soothe his soul and kiss away the dark circles beneath his eyes, but the thought of her chief lying awake in bed beneath them had been a fairly good deterrent for any nocturnal activities. The fact that he could often be heard moving around - getting up, sitting by the fire, whittling through the small hours - had stifled the only attempt they'd made. She'd scowled as he froze against her for the umpteenth time at a creak of wood below them, and finally stolen the blanket and caccooned herself in it, leaving him to lie naked beside her, so close yet completely unable to do what either of them wanted.

Stoick had clattered up the stairs the same as ever the next morning, although the sight of his son's bare ass greeting him had only inspired him to make more noise since, and led to Hiccup sleeping almost fully clothed.

After almost a month, she had been exhausted - mentally, physically and emotionally - and had stripped with a vengeance and decided that if she wasn't getting what she wanted out of her martial bed, she was going to find it for herself. She'd grabbed one of his tunics, unwashed and still smelling of smoke and leather, and buried her face in it as she rubbed her fingers furiously against herself, wishing her fingers were thicker and callused. In a final act of revenge, she'd used the tunic's sleeve to wipe her hand and soak up what was left after three quick releases, then folded it in with his clean clothes, before sprawling naked on their bed and hoping he would wake her when he returned, just so she could refuse him.

He hadn't come home that night at all.

Or at least, he must have, because she was covered with a sheet and his tunic lay on the floor, discarded for a new one, but he hadn't stayed.

She had scowled and cautiously run a hand over her swelling stomach, and feared the worst.

She could hardly remember a time when Hiccup _hadn't_ wanted her - even when they were teenagers, or before then, when he only desired her friendship. He'd admitted, under her interrogation and torturous touch, exactly how long he's dreamed of having her, and the fantasies he used to shake from his body when the nights became lonely and long.

But now that he'd had her - to the degree where she was bloated and sore and sick with _his_ child - was that it?

Like Hel it was, she decided, and grabbed at a pile of clothing. She took her old shirt - a deep red linen one he'd bought her while she was still recovering from the Zippleback venom - and fixed her fur skirt around her waist, even if it bulged a little in the front. She decided to forgo leggings, and was just leaving when she noticed the disturbed pile of his clean tunics, and realised which one he'd taken.

She smirked, and stalked out into the village.

He wasn't hard to find, thank the gods - Stoick usually had him working on villagers orders in the forge, to 'broaden his social skills' - and she was silently glad she didn't have to mount Stormfly to find him. She'd ridden without leggings once - when a honey-pot infiltration of a dragon trapper's stronghold had gone pear shaped and she had to escape while still dressed as a whore - and it wasn't something she was keen to repeat.

She found him pouring over a set of designs with Sven Larson, and stopped momentarily when she noticed the way he was twirling a pencil between his fingers. Sven caught sight of her first and waved, beckoning her over - he'd been one of the kinder Vikings since their return, offering to help Hiccup in learning the changes to the village over the past seven years in exchange for an updated prosthetic. His daughter was still betrothed to Snoutlout, but he saw no conflict in currying favour with both of the potential future chiefs, and knew that the true way to keep a man happy was through a happy wife.

Loki's balls, she needed Sven to teach that lesson to her husband.

If either man had thought it was odd that she was dressed like a marauder with no leggings, they didn't mention it. Hiccup had simply leant over the bench to place a chaste kiss on her lips, and it was only Sven's presence that stopped her pulling him back to her when he drew away and throwing him onto the bench to have her way with.

"How's the babe?"

Her hands automatically moved to her stomach, meeting soft fur, and she tried to smile and answer Sven's question with what he wanted to hear.

"Not kicking yet, thank the gods."

_It's driving a wedge between me and my husband and I can't sleep at night. My breasts feel like bags of sand and I've never had to piss this often in my life, and thanks to this useless lump of flesh that will eventually become chief, I had to get myself off last night on the smell of Hiccup's tunic._

No. That would be too much information.

Instead, she slid around the bench to stand toe to toe with the man of interest, and gently bought one of his hands to her lips to kiss.

"Aye, you'll need ta be careful - this one was born so soon we thought the gods would take him every morn for a good few months!"

She nodded to Sven, appreciatively, and twisted her grip on Hiccup's hand slightly, so the cuff of his tunic was directly beneath his nose.

"I've heard - but I won't let his weaker blood taint any child of mine."

He inhaled, slightly, and froze. Looked down at her. Sniffed again.

Sven laughed, clueless to what was going on between the two lovers, and turned back to the design.

"That's what the Haddock line has needed - a bit of angry Hofferson in it!"

She looked up at her husband, and blinked innocently as his eyes darkened.

"Oh, I don't know - I think the angry Hofferson could use some Haddock inside it."

She nudged her hip forward, brushing against the tightening front of his breeches, and his hiss was only muffled by the sound of her punching his arm.

"I'm training with Hildegard until mid-afternoon - are you free after then?"

He wasn't - she knew he wasn't. But when she brushed her hip against him again, any objections (or indeed the power of coherent speech) was taken from him.

"Why?" Hiccup finally asked when the silence was just on the sly side of uncomfortable.

"Because," she said, leaning in and slipping one bare thigh between his, "I need you to braid my hair."

Then she'd twisted and stalked away, leaving him with the smell and feel of her and the promise of the late afternoon. She'd glanced over her shoulder once she was far enough away, and grinned wickedly at the sight of him hunched awkwardly over the bench, trying to keep the throbbing in his pants out of sight.

Hildegard was still only at the bonding stage with her lilac Nadder - playing fetch and sharing fish instead of climbing onto its back and soaring above the clouds - but Astrid had a soft spot for Nadders, and an even softer one for Hildegard. The poor lamb was stuck with the threat of marriage to Snoutlout, and although she'd been quiet and meek as a girl, she was growing into something of a firecracker, with bright red hair and an evil temper. She had a lower tolerance for bullshit than Astrid herself, and although she wasn't supposed to carry a weapon, she could clobber a man with a stick like a champion.

She had raised an eyebrow at Astrid's risky attire, but hadn't said anything - if there was one thing Astrid had proven in her brief time back on Berk, it was that to anger or question a pregnant Hofferson was a very, _very _bad idea.

Astrid had been about to wave at the girl when she was snatched from the ground by a dark black claw.

She screamed, and cursed, until suddenly the edge of Raven Point was rising up to meet her, and she fell to the ground with a huff of relief, before turning her full fury towards the man on the back of the dragon.

"Do you _want_ me to miscarry?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I thought Hoffersons were much stronger than that."

She punched him, hard in the stomach, and when he doubled over in pain, she realised her punch wasn't the only thing that was hard.

"The whole village could probably see up my skirt!"

"Are you coming with me or not?"

She scowled. "Are you planning on doing something, or just holding me like a dead bear and getting hard against my ass and not doing anything?"

He paused, then held out a hand. "If you wait any longer, Stoick will be able to catch up."

Like Hel she was going to let his father come between them again, even if she was mostly planning on beating the shit out of him and maybe tying him to a tree and making him watch as she pleasured herself, over and over.

She was climbing onto Toothless' back when she remembered the spines along the back of the saddle. She managed to find the energy to scowl back at Hiccup as she swung herself up to sit in front. His arms came around her, resting naturally on her stomach, and she almost growled.

"What did I just say about dead bear and poking me in the ass?"

His chin came down to rest over her shoulder and he shifted forwards, crushing her back into him.

"I'm not going to do nothing this time."

Toothless snapped and took off without his rider's permission, the catch of the prosthetic hauling Hiccup back in the saddle and making at least part of his blood flow back to his brain.

They flew in silence, at least until she caught sight of a crescent shaped island and felt Toothless beginning to descend. She knew that if they flew over it, she'd see a cove with a lake in the middle and, if she landed, a cave that had been the site of half the memories she'd brought to mind the night before when she was rubbing herself into a frenzy. Automatically, she slid back and ground against him, and felt his shudder through her skin and through the three foot drop Toothless made when the rig was disengaged. An earflap slapped into her arm, and she got the message.

She was expecting them to swoop down into the cove, but his hand shifted almost imperceptibly against Toothless' side and instead they landed on the beach, the water just beginning to glint orange as dawn rose.

As soon as they were on solid ground, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her down into the sand, somehow disengaging and detaching his prosthetic as they went. She was familiar with the move, and it didn't impress her the same way it had the first time he'd pulled it - instead, it just made her wonder how many times he'd had to practice.

She landed on her back, his arm still around her, and hadn't had time to think before he rolled on top of her and attacked her lips with his.

They'd been relatively chaste with their kisses since they'd returned to Berk - nowhere near as chaste as was traditional, since kissing in public at all was considered uncouth - and even in the relative privacy of their bedroom, it rarely escalated beyond a simple touch of lips. This, however, was completely different - he pressed his entire body into hers, pulling her bottom lip between his teeth before sliding his tongue against her teeth and past them, stroking against hers—

Angry. She was angry about something, before he started kissing her and oh gods he was hard, pressing against the hem of her skirt and pushing forwards, making it ride up her naked thigh—

She considered it a testament to her strength that she managed to throw him off and glare down at him.

"You could have killed me!"

His dark eyes narrowed, as if trying to remember a time before then and there.

"I thought you wanted me."

She flicked a handful of sand at him. "That didn't mean I wanted you to pluck me off the face of the earth and carry me off like a sacrifice again!"

A touch of green was returning to his eyes, and she was forced to remember the fact that he would never knowingly hurt her.

"And why did you bring me here?"

He gave her a pleading look. "I was kinda hoping that was obvious."

"No, why here?" She flicked another handful of sand at him. "Sand."

His arms came around his head to protect him from the sand assaults, and he froze. The cuff was dangling right in front of him again.

He pressed the cloth against his nose and took a heavy breath, then looked up at her.

"I saw you. Last night."

She paused, taken aback by how animalistic he looked as he righted himself to sit in the sand, still staring up at her. She wondered how he could have, then remembered exactly how distracted and furious she'd been, and realised the village could have burnt down around her and she wouldn't have noticed.

Angry.

"Then why didn't you do anything about it?"

He was taken aback by her angry hiss, and retreated slightly. "I figured if you were doing that alone, you didn't want me there."

She scowled. "Then why the fuck do you think I needed to do it in the first place?"

He paused, and a look of apologetic horror crossed his face, just as it came across hers. Could he have…

She thought of the one time they had tried something - she had been the one to roll her eyes and push him off her, the one to shut him out. And when he started sleeping clothed, she'd made no effort to stop him, no suggestions otherwise - nothing.

She was opening her mouth to apologise when he surged forward and covered it with his, kissing her roughly and passionately, his eyes full of apology. He pulled away only to dig his fingers into her scalp and move his lips to her neck, leaving hot, heavy marks against her skin. She remained stiff, for a moment longer than necessary, and when she realised exactly how much more urgent that made him, she fought her natural instinct and stayed tense against him.

He leaned back to look at her, the hands in her hair keeping her face turned towards him.

"I'm so sorry Astrid."

She wanted to kiss him, to apologise in return, but she was too taken in the thought of how far he would go to get an apology out of her.

"How sorry?"

He didn't bother with her shirt, which surprised her - he'd been so taken with her breasts since her failed half-seduction a mile from where they lay that she sometimes worried he was more interested in them than he was in her. Instead, he slithered down her body, hands digging into her waist, and kissed his way back up her bare thighs, her skirt riding up as he went. She tried not to move, to stay still and silent, but the higher he got, the longer he spent on each kiss, trailing up and down her skin with his tongue and rubbing his chin against the sensitive skin, stubble scratching into her soul. When she finally let out a breathy moan, she could feel his lips contort into a smile and speed up, and she realised he was playing her as much as she was playing him.

He paused, his lips hovering over her damp centre, and exhaled a puff of cool air over her.

"Fuck you," she managed to gasp, twisting her fingers through his hair and trying to drag him to where she needed him most.

"Maybe later," he said, before swiping his tongue swiftly against her and letting her squirm. "For now, just you."

His mouth closed around the bundle of nerves at her core and he sucked at her ruthlessly, and she almost smacked the smile off his face when she could see straight again.

"Your fault," she said as he dipped his head back down to her, unfastening her skirt as he trailed his tongue along the crease of her thigh. "If you were - fuck! - a good husband, I could… I could - sweet Freya Hiccup, if you don't do that again I will break your fingers - I wouldn't come so easily."

He pulled back to remove her skirt and boots, then slide his hands beneath the hem of her shirt, glancing over her swollen skin.

"I'm sorry."

He lifted her hips and slid the skirt back beneath her to act as a barrier between her and the sand, before turning his full attention to her shirt. His fingers played lazily against her centre as he slid the shirt up, and his eyes widened at her reaction to even the lightest pressure on her breasts.

"Is that…?"

"Baby," she said bluntly, reaching down for the hem of his tunic. "See what you've been missing out on?"

He nodded emphatically and they separated for a moment to each pull off their shirts before his fingers caught the knot of her bindings.

"Sit up."

She did, carefully, as he undid the knot and his arms circled her torso, taking the fabric with them. She sighed as the heavy skin was released, tumbling forwards and—

His eyes caught her breasts, with a familiar hungry expression, before he paused. "Lie down on your front."

Her eyes narrowed. "What are you—"

"Please, Astrid?"

There was something so helpless in his eyes that she obeyed, grumbling as the cool sand met her sensitive breasts and crushed them back into her rib cage, before his hands dug into her back and began scratching the red skin where the bindings had been, and —

Oh. That was good. That was seriously, _seriously_ good.

She couldn't help the whimper that slipped through her lips, and she wouldn't want to - he redoubled his efforts, one hand scratching and the other massaging. The sand shifted against her heavy breasts and rounded belly, accommodating yet firm, and she finally relaxed and slumped bonelessly forwards.

"Why the beach?"

The words came out in a jumbled moan, and she heard him chuckle as his thumbs dug into the small of her back.

"Because," he said, shifting to bring one knee over her and straddle her, "the first time you tried to jump me, I had to run away to here and get off by myself so I didn't hurt you."

She could feel him, firm and throbbing against her back, and remembered the first time she'd felt that mysterious hardness, pressing against her and causing feelings she didn't want to confront before he shoved her away and disappeared. If only someone had told her then where she would be in less than three years - lying naked on a beach with his child in her, practically begging him to fuck her.

She wriggled back against him, and felt him twitch in response.

"What did I say about being a dead bear with a hard cock and not doing anything about it?"

The sun was just rising and the tide was finally on its way out when her bare back hit the sand, bracketed between his arms.


	2. New

She was terrified.

For all the talk of Fearless Astrid Hofferson, the take no prisoners warrior, the woman who was handed to a demon as a human sacrifice and retured as a missive for peace with the long lost heir by her side - the woman who had brought about the death of Dragon Bludvist - she had never felt more fear than she did when Rhea finally handed her the towel wrapped bundle of flesh that was her daughter.

She was dimly aware of Hiccup shifting by her shoulder, finally free from the claw-like grip she'd been holding him with for the past few hours. A few village women - Hildegard, Phelgma, Mrs Ack - were clearing away bloodied towels and drawing a bath and clearing out as fast as they could to leave the new mother and father alone to connect with the babe. Rhea was standing proudly by the edge of the bed, having pulled the child herself from Astrid's body, while Gothi watched, her hands too stiff with age to be of use anymore.

Astrid was glad Rhea was there - more glad that she'd insisted the goldsmith come to Berk two weeks before the child was expected, since the child had decided to bugger all expectations and be born ten days early. Allayne and Eret were due to arrive in a week, and there was no hurrying their sea journey - Allayne had promised to sit by and laugh and remind Astrid of all the terrible things they'd said about each other while she screamed and pushed the baby from her body. Astrid had wanted Ruffnut there too, but had little hope of contacting her - she'd sent a message to Rome, the last place she'd seen her childhood friend, when there was hardly a whisper of what was to come in her body. She hadn't heard anything back and Ruffnut wasn't there, but she had no way of knowing if that was by choice or circumstance.

She had wanted to guard herself - to build a shield of the women she trusted and loved while she was at her most vulnerable - because she knew what she would have to do when the time came.

It had been at least two hours into her labour. The news had spread quickly through the village, especially since she'd been lounging in the forge with Hiccup and Rhea when suddenly her belly had twisted and her knees had buckled and she swore at the top of her lungs. She'd been carried home, cursing the whole way, and by virtue of Gobber, the whole island soon knew. She was still screaming and swearing two hours later, when Hildegard disappeared down stairs to answer an insistant knock at the door. Hiccup had winced when her hold on his fingers tightened, and smoothed her fringe from her brow to drop a gentle kiss against her temple.

Astrid knew what Hildegard was going to say before she opened her mouth.

"No."

Hildegard froze, and an expression of fear and regret passed over her face, just as Astrid's mother appeared behind her.

Astrid somehow found one tiny piece of control left in her body, as her insides felt they were being scrubbed with a wire brush, to look her mother in the eye.

"No."

It was cruel, she knew. But she had sworn an oath months before, that this woman, and her husband, would have no part in the life of her child.

Her mother had pursed her lips and turned on her heel, thumping back down the stairs and out of the hall.

"You might regret that one down the track," Rhea had said with one eyebrow cocked. "A good grandparent to hoist your child onto when you're sick of their noises is worth their weight in gold."

Astrid had stiffened with pain as another wave of pinching passed through her body. "I was planning to use you for that."

Rhea had paused slightly, and looked just above Astrid's head, where Hiccup sat. "Aye. I was planning on being the same for you anyway."

And now, with the child - the girl - in her arm, Astrid felt the weight of the world in the tiny bundle of noise and skin.

Hiccup's arms closed around her stomach, not caring for the mess and the bloody sheets, and he rested his chin on her shoulder.

"She's…"

He swallowed, lost for words, and kissed her neck lightly.

"She's real."

Astrid brought her arms up, lifting the baby to press against her cheek. The child sobbed lightly, still growing accustomed to the air in her lungs, and Astrid felt a hot tear dribbling down the line of her scar.

"You'll need to feed her," said Mrs Ack brusquely, "especially with one born too soon."

Astrid nodded, dazed, and tried to pull aside the neck of her shirt before she felt a cold sliver of steel along the line of her shoulder, and heard the soft snick of her hair-cutting shears slicing through fabric. She was silently grateful as Hiccup pulled aside the cloth and what little she wore to pass for bindings, and the child nuzzled hungrily along the bare, offered flesh before latching onto a nipple. Astrid jumped slightly at the foreign feel, before being struck by how entirely right it felt.

And how easily it could be taken from her.

She'd wanted a boy. A strong, determined boy that she could train with an axe while Hiccup taught him to smith and fly. An heir for the tribe, who would be brought up with the right ideas about people and dragons.

A boy, who couldn't be taken away or raped or sacrificed.

Of all the good women she knew, none had escaped the world unharmed. Ruffnut had been shamed for escaping a world that would kill her. Allayne had been held captive, tortured and raped and violated. Valka had been forced to watch as every dragon she loved was slaughtered before she too was killed. And Astrid herself had been sold as a price for peace, to a man the village had believed would destroy her.

She leaned further back into Hiccup, and he took her weight, tightening his hold around her. The baby suckled gently, a little curled fist tapping slowly against her mother's breast, drinking in time with Astrid's heartbeat.

"She's so fragile."

Hiccup shrugged behind her, bringing one hand up to rest against the arm holding the baby's bundle. "She's a baby. They're kinda like that."

"I'm scared."

It wasn't often that Astrid Haddock said those words, but it would become much more common over the rest of her lifetime. It was never used in relation to her own safety. It was occasionally used referring to some stupid scheme Hiccup had gotten himself involved in. She would admit it far more often to Stoick, when the great chief finally stepped aside for his son and left Berk in his hands.

But her fear was reserved almost exclusively for Valka Haddock, the second of her name, as she grew and changed and became the first female chief of Berk.

But in that moment, bracketed between her husband and the child they'd created together, she let joy and hope wash out terror, and sent out a prayer for the new dawn.


	3. All Greek To Me

"This is ridiculous."

"No, it's Greek - see, the letters are different, and—"

"No, it's ridiculous. I just learnt all the runes, and now there's more?"

Hiccup winced. He wasn't looking forward to explaining this. "Well, kinda. You see, umm - y'know how Ares speaks a different tongue?"

Astrid paused. "You're kidding me."

He tried to smile apologetically. She didn't take it.

"So I have to learn all the new letters, and how they make words - words that I don't speak or understand - if I want to read anything here?"

"Well, technically, you have to learn the letters and the grammer - they have a different way of structuring sentances, so - ow!"

He rubbed his bicep on the point where she'd punched him, but knew it wouldn't bruise. Part of being married to Astrid was knowing which hits would bruise, which were affectionate and which ones meant she wanted him in her bed. This one was somewhere between affectionate and frustrated.

"Why would there be more than one way of writing though?"

He shrugged. "Same reason there are different tongues."

She flopped dramatically back against him on the couch, gesturing at the room around them. The walls were honeycombed with shelves stuffed with books, scrolls, parchments and even old wood pressed tomes, and she couldn't read a word of any of it.

"I'm so bored."

He smiled without meaning to. He would never have expected Astrid to be the voracious reader she had turned into. Over the past eight months, since she'd been bed-bound with her wounds, she'd taken to written words like a duck to water. He had been as stuck in Rhea's shed as her, teaching her more and more words and runes until one day she proudly read a note he'd scribbled for her without help. Then she'd punched him, because the note was sappy and she hadn't learned to read just so that he could have more ways to tell her he loved her. It had been a bedroom punch though, and as she'd proudly traced her own name on his skin, he'd shivered and been glad she was such a good student.

Since then, she'd read almost every day, moving from simple sentences to longer tales until he had to coax her away from her parchments to sleep. After a while he'd figured the best way to do that was to slowly run his hands and tongue against her until she forgot that she had been reading at all, until he'd made the mistake of bringing her an Edda gifted to him by his father, and had to face the humiliation of having his head between her legs while she still held up the papers and gasped - not for him, but for one of the characters within the story.

But now, she'd read everything they had room for in their saddlebags when they left Rhea's for Athens, and she was trapped in a library she had not power to use.

"Ares should be back with news in a day or two," he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and drawing her in close. She curled into him, playing idly with the laces of tunic like a bored cat.

"I miss Stormfly."

"And I miss Toothless. But they're both safer on Eret's boat."

She raised an eyebrow. "So long as little Eret doesn't try to fly her again."

He snorted at the memory of Allayne's fury (and the older Eret's amusement) as she ranted at them about the danger of keeping dragons so close to her son. The sharp exhale glanced across the top of her head, stirring her loose hair and making her shudder slightly.

"Read me something."

He looked down at the parchment on the edge of the couch, the one she'd pulled from the shelves expecting to read and only finding foreign symbols.

"My Greek isn't great," he admitted, picking it up none the less and unrolling it. "I'm not sure I can translate fast enough."

"Then don't," she said, stretching slightly against him and bumping her hip into his.

"You won't understand it."

"I don't care."

His heart melted slightly, as had become its habit whenever Astrid did anything to remind him that she loved him, and wanted him, in spite of everything. When she was still weak and bedridden, she'd insisted he read to her until she fell asleep (since any intimacy between them was still uncomfortable and frankly dangerous). She didn't care what he read, even if it was just a shipping summary from Berk, so long as it was _his_ voice that lulled her into slumber.

He scanned the parchment - a philosophical piece, full of verbose words and strange metaphors - and was glad Astrid wouldn't understand it. She'd hate it if she could understand.

He cleared his throat, and started reading, also glad none of the house were around to hear his atrocious pronunciation. His Greek was rustier than he remembered, but it was only when he paused to try and recall one of the words that he noticed Astrid shifting and rolling her shoulders back against him.

He kept reading, but slower, watching her reactions. She might not understand a word, but she was clearly enjoying it - pressing herself closer against him, shuffling her hips to find the most comfortable position, looking up at him with half lidded eyes. As he watched, she took one of his hands from the parchment and rested it against her sternum, brushing the rise of her breasts.

He tried not to think about the low slit in the neckline of her shirt, and the way he knew he could just slide his hand beneath it. He also tried not to think about the fact that she didn't wear bindings that morning, since they were trapped in the house and the air was warm and heavy.

When exactly did it become quite so warm and heavy?

His mouth was dry, but he kept reading, stumbling over words as he slowly brushed his hand up her chest to her neck, gently massaging a bruise he had left there the night before. She gasped slightly, and rolled against him in punishment, before sliding one of her hands brazenly up his thigh to rest a few inches shy of where he really wanted it.

His voice cracked when she took his hand from her neck and slid it up to her face, before sucking two of his fingers into her mouth and grinning up at him.

"I'm bored," she announced, the words muffled around his fingers. Then she stood, abruptly, and grabbed his waist.

He knew where this was going. He always pretended to dislike it, as she picked him up like a wayward farm animal and tossed him over her shoulder. He didn't want to admit that he loved the feel of her broad shoulder digging into his stomach, of her arm wrapped around the back of his knees. He tried not to tell her how safe, and secure, and wanted he felt whenever she interrupted whatever they were doing to literally drag him to their bed and do wicked things to him. And he would never, for the sake of his own life, admit that the view the position gave of her ass was amazing.

So he struggled, as always, crying out as she slung him onto her shoulder, and tried to sound indignant at her interrupting his Greek reading.

"Really, Astrid? Really?!"

She adjusted her grip, so one hand rested firmly over his backside. "Shut up, Hiccup."

She started striding out of the library, back towards the room they'd claimed as their own and the bed they shared.

Then she dug her fingers into the firm flesh of his ass and he yelped, knowing she would be wearing that sly grin that made his heart race and his pants tighten and made him want to do nothing but please her.

"Gods! Woman!"


	4. Three

**This is for midoriko-sama, based on a request she had (and in thanks for all her awesome work)**

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><p>If little Valka Haddock had one skill, and one skill only, it was finding the most dangerous place she could possibly be in, and staying there.<p>

It was a running joke in the village - that the chief's five year old daughter could sniff out trouble and be where the action was before it even started. Hiccup mostly went along with it, joking that he should take Valka with him and Toothless on patrols to assess threats before they happened. Astrid faced it with a stern glare and tired arms from picking up her daughter and moving her away from whatever could hurt her.

But since Eret's arrival two years before - brought on, it was said, a full two weeks early from Astrid's stress at seeing her daughter using Hiccup's prototype flaming sword - her arms were too full to constantly be chasing after the girl, and Valka was getting too fast to be properly chased down.

And in the middle was Rhea, left to chase and hurry and look after the grandchild she had never expected to have.

Thank god the little girl loved braiding hair.

There was something exceptionally soothing about tiny, not quite delicate fingers closing around her long, dark hair, Rhea thought as she sat cross legged on the floor of the forge. It was a compromise for Valka, that if she was to sit still and be silent in her task, she had to be sitting in the middle of the most dangerous place on Berk for a small child, surrounded by sharp steel and heavy hammers. Besides, it was the most familiar feature of Berk for Rhea, dragged north into the freezing cold to provide care and company for Astrid and Valka as Hiccup was dragged off to a Thing in the east that he didn't want to be at. The warmth of the forge was the only relief against the freezing cold and chilly winds, and both the chief's false mother and real daughter could almost always be found there. In Rhea's hands was a whittling knife, and behind her, perched on a chair, Valka was focussed on her task, the edge of her tongue peeking from the corner of her mouth. She wasn't very good, but the girl was gentle and soft and she loved the long, straight hair that Rhea offered.

"How does he find the time?"

Gobber was supposed to be working, but, of course, was ripe for gossip instead.

"It isn't a matter of him finding time," Rhea said, scraping the blade against the grain of a small lump of wood. "It's a matter of_ them_ finding time."

"Well, find it they definitely did," Gobber replied, leaning out over the bench to watch the town with clouded eyes. The fact that they were in the middle of devastating winter didn't help his sight, especially with last night's snowfall hanging like static in his vision, but he could easily make out Astrid by her proud gait and the child in her arms, directing the construction of the Snoggletog pyre. The sound of her yelling had become an almost pleasant background noise over the past few days, a reassuring drone around all of Berk. "That one's hardly weaned and already there's another on the way."

"If you'd heard the noises I put up with when they were banished and stuck in my shed, you'd be surprised the boy made it to two before this happened."

Valka looked up from her task, tugging slightly on the hair.

"Don't move, Nana Rhea. You'll mess them up."

"Sorry, little duck - I'll be still as a post."

"What are you two talking about?"

Gobber stiffened, looking desperately to Rhea for help.

"Your parents."

Gobber's eyebrows shot up, but Valka merely shrugged and went back to her braiding. "They're boring. Can we talk about dragons instead?"

"Why don't you tell me about them instead, little duck?"

"Why are they gone at the moment? Only Toothless stays for winter, Papa says, but Stormfly loves Mama as much as Toothless, and she still left."

Rhea sighed - it seemed either way, they were talking birds and bees. Or dragons and parents and little brothers and sister on their way.

"They leave to have babies," she explained, as Valka shifted to cross her legs on the chair, accidentally kicking Rhea in the back of the head.

"Sorry Nana."

"It's fine, little duck."

"Why do they leave to have babies? Why can't they have them here?"

"Because," said Gobber, tossing a handful of coal into the forge hearth, "Stormfly tried to stay once, and those explodin' eggs of hers set half your hall on fire."

Valka giggled, pulling another strand of Rhea's hair into the braid. "Why don't I remember that?"

"You weren't born," Rhea explained, carving out another chunk of wood. "Though you weren't far from the world. Stormfly wanted to keep your mother safe as you came, and maybe share the miracle of motherhood."

"Aye, the miracle of screaming and shouting and teaching the whole village new ways to curse," Gobber added, warming his hands by the fire and glancing out to the square again. "Would have sworn Astrid'd never let a boy between her legs, let along bear one three babes."

Valka frowned and jerked her head back at Valka. Gobber shrugged, as if to say _Like she'd know what we're saying._

Astrid, of course, refused to let her pregnancy weigh her down - not that she'd even announced it. But it turned out that Gobber, with his faded sight and focus on shapes and movement instead of details, could spot an expecting woman a month before she even knew herself. He mostly kept his talent to himself, feeding the rumour mill and placing bets he knew he would win, but with Astrid, he kept the information within the small circle that could be considered her family.

Rhea thought herself privileged to be a part of that circle.

"It's not the three that shocks me," came a different voice, "but the fact that they're my son's."

"Stoick!"

"We thought you'd shut yourself in with your own fire," Gobber said, making room by the forge for his battle brother. Stoick stepped in gratefully, not before ruffling Valka's untidy hair.

"There's no fire or company like this in my new hall," he said, watching fondly as Valka tied off a braid and started a new one.

"Aye, and no screaming at all hours of the morning," Gobber reminded him.

"Or the noise of children," Rhea added sneakily. Gobber and Stoick traded amused looks, while Valka braided on, oblivious.

"Don't remind me," Stoick muttered, looking around furtively. "They tried it on while I saw still in the house once. I'm still trying to get the sight of Hiccup's bare ass our of my head."

Rhea laughed noisily. "I'll bet my third grandchild that they tried it more than once, Stoick. And every other time they tried, I'd say they succeeded."

"Tried what?"

Valka looked up from her braiding, round green eyes focussed on her grandfather. He coughed and spluttered, before Rhea rescued him.

"Cooking Snoggletog goose."

"Oh. Mama's a terrible cook."

"Seems she's good at stuffing geese though," Gobber muttered, looking out to the square again.

"Keep it down," Stoick warned, "Astrid'll hear you and then it'll be Hel for all of us."

"Not me," said Rhea cheerily. "She needs me as a grandmother. The little duck's got two grandpas though, so you two might want to be on guard."

"Has it been announced yet?"

"No, and you'd best be keeping it quiet til then."

"Why? Last time she was the size of a house before she bothered to tell anyone. And by then, she didn't need to."

Rhea pursed her lips, remembering an oath she'd sworn to a distraught Astrid, her thighs coated in blood and her cheeks stained with tears, that _no one must know. _Hiccup swore the same oath beside her, with the same tears and the same aching heart, as they buried the child brought too soon into the world, and prayed for strength.

"Are big families common on Berk?"

If Gobber or Stoick noticed the abrupt change of topic, they didn't mention it.

"It's a habit left over from the war," Stoick said, peering down at the wood Rhea was whittling. "A survival tactic. When everything constantly in threat, you try to have as much as possible, so if you lose something it seems like less."

"Doesn't stop the hurt of losing though," Gobber added, looking down at the child's high cheek bones and ruddy brown hair.

"So three isn't many?"

"No! The Standsores had fifteen when I was a boy! Of course, they were mostly girls, so they're all different names now, but - actually, most of them married Armlots, so that was a dead end for the Berk gene pool, and I'm from a family of eight meself! Sure, you get the odd only child, but trust me, three is _restraint_ on their part, and—"

"Excuse me?"

Gobber's rant was cut off by a curt cough and a pointed question. He turned, surprised at the interruption, and stiffened, before relaxing into his usual, jovial self.

"Ah - morning missus, you've be after that set of —"

"Shears. Sharpened."

The woman spoke in a harsh, strong voice, and wasn't one of mince words.

"Of course - they're just out back, somewhere in this mess, 'scuse me little duck—" He danced by the chair and into the study, not before Rhea caught a wide eyed look of _oh boy._

Unable to resist, Rhea snuck a longer glance up at the woman - short but compact, mostly muscle, with the smooth blonde hair and clear blue eyes that seemed common genetics to Berk before Astrid laughed herself stupid once and explained the dying processes that most Vikings went through in the pursuit of beauty. Rhea had given the girl a cocked eyebrow at that idea, to which Astrid had gathered up her own short locks and proudly proclaimed that she wouldn't care if her hair was black as pitch, and that she herself preferred brown on a man. _A_ man, of course, who was sitting beside her at the time and had whispered when he thought Rhea couldn't hear that as much as he would love her however she looked, he was especially fond of her then and there.

Rhea had had to put a pillow over her head to drown out the noise that night, and had bought a song bird from Camant the next day to help muffle them in future.

The woman standing outside the forge though, wrapped in heavy furs, seemed naturally blonde, if the eyebrow advice Astrid had given her was an accurate judge. She had a familiar nose too, small and upturned, and beneath wrinkles and wear, her skin seemed freckled.

It hit Rhea with a jolt that this woman was familiar - that she had seen her before, in far less hospitable circumstances, and when she glanced to Stoick for confirmation, he nodded slightly, before straightening and offering a respectful head tilt.

"Mrs Hofferson."

The woman nodded stiffly in return, then looked away.

Valka's hands twisted on in Rhea's hair, obliviously tying off a final braid before looking up at Stoick.

"Can I braid your beard again grandpa?"

Rhea couldn't help the laugh. "Again?" She looked over her shoulder at Valka. "I think you might have this mean old man wrapped around your finger, little duck."

Valka scrunched up her face, confused. "Grandpa isn't mean, he's just scary. _Eret_ is mean."

Rhea raised a brow. "Which one?"

"My brother. He wakes me up with his crying, and then Eret son of Eret is mean too sometimes, like when he beats me in sword fights."

Stoick laughed heartily at that. "He's twice your age, little duck. And didn't he offer to teach you anyway?"

Valka crossed her arms and huffed, pouting.

"Little duck?"

All three occupants of the forge looked over in surprise at the question. Mrs Hofferson shifted, uncomfortable, but held her ground. Rhea and Stoick glanced awkwardly at one another, before Valka piped up, oblivious to the tension.

"Because I'm little, and I'm always getting myself in trouble. And mama's always telling me to duck."

Rhea decided not to mention that the affectionate nickname had originally been born from a similar sounding but far less sweet sentiment, which Astrid had screamed at the girl the first time she'd stolen her father's sword.

Valka tilted her head, looking at Mrs Hofferson curiously. "My mama doesn't like you."

Mrs Hofferson stiffened.

"Why doesn't she like you?"

There was a tense, heavy silence before - thank all that was holy - Gobber clattered back into the forge.

"Here we are - sharp as a Bog Burglar's wit, and believe me, that is—"

Mrs Hofferson grabbed the shears, dropped a few coins on the counter and turned away without another word.

"—sharp."

Valka looked up at the adults, questioningly

"Who pissed in her moon tea?"

Rhea couldn't decide whether to laugh or gasp at the harsh words coming from such an innocent mouth. Gobber went for laugh, Stoick decided on a scolding glance, and Valka looked up at them in confusion.

"What? That's what mama says when someone's rude."

Gobber let out another howl of laughter, before stopping short and elbowing Stoick in the side, pointing towards the town square. All eyes in the forge followed as Mrs Hofferson - with her proud gait and a slight limp in her left leg that went unnoticed by all but Gobber - made her way towards the Snoggletog pyre, and the people milling around it.

"Should we stop her?"

It was the most serious thing Gobber had said in years.

They watched as the small blonde head made its way through the crowd, ducking and weaving until it was level with a taller, prouder head of the same shade but short length. They could still hear Astrid yelling endless instructions in a loud, clear voice, like the sound of the sea on a rowboat.

"There are others. Surely she wouldn't—?"

Astrid's yelling stopped, abruptly, and the silence was deafening.

But it was nothing compared to the look Astrid gave towards the forge before storming over.

"Well, we're dead," said Gobber bluntly once she was less that twenty paces off. Rhea was too busy admiring how Astrid could stride so fast and powerfully with a child on her hip to truly appreciate how terrifying she looked.

"Which one of you told her?"

Valka looked up in surprise, grinning at the sight of her mother drawn from duty. "Mama, look - Nana lets me braid her hair!"

Astrid gritted her teeth and somehow managed a smile for her daughter. "That's very kind of her, little duck. Can you tell me which of your grandparents told that woman I'm going to have another baby?"

Valka's face lit up. "You're having another baby?!"

It was like a wind pushing a snow storm a thousand miles away - Astrid's face melted as she looked down at her daughter, then down to Eret in her arms.

"Um… yes, little duck. I am."

Valka jumped up onto her chair in excitement.

"But you can't tell anyone!"

Valka nodded eagerly, then climbed up onto the bench and hurried over to her mother, looping her little arms around her neck and pressing her cheek to that of her brother.

"It's a secret," she whispered into Eret's ear, and Rhea was relieved to see the tension dissolve from Astrid's body and she wrapped a hand around the back of Valka's knees.

"Yes, little duck. It's a secret."

Then she looked over to the adults gathered around the forge, and scowled.

"And I don't need to tell you what a fucking secret is."

Gobber blanched, and Stoick grimaced, but Rhea had bigger concerns.

"What did she say?"

Astrid paused, then inhaled and held Valka a little closer.

"Three."

Rhea nodded, and Astrid look another deep breath before focussing in on Gobber.

"And since I'm assuming you told her, consider yourself de-godfathered."

She scooped Valka into a more secure grasp and hefted her off the bench, walking back towards the construction site with both children in her arms. _All three children_, Rhea corrected herself mentally, as the drone of Astrid's yelling started up again.

"How long do you give it before she reinstates godfather status?" Rhea asked, looking up at Gobber.

"I give three days."


	5. Singular (Sacrifices Outtake)

_**AN: The following is a deleted scene from Sacrifices - the plot was quite different when this was drafted, but this was originally around chapter 19-20. Some of the dialogue was repurposed later, but I still really like how it works as a little interlude.**_

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><p>"We'll have to split up."<p>

The map was spread across the kitchen table, the edges of the paper curling haphazardly over the lip of the wood. She'd been bent over it when he'd gone looking for her, her side of the bed empty that morning.

Astrid pointed to the archipelagos, and traced around them.

"There's no way we can cover all the tribes before Drago wipes them out."

Hiccup nodded and leaned over her, resting his head on her shoulder.

"We should start together, at least," he said, pointing to a crescent shaped island to the west of Berk. "The Meatheads are the closest, and the most vulnerable."

"And the toughest," she added.

"What? No no no no - the toughest is here," he said, pointing to Berk. "Or at least she used to. I heard some handsome dragon rider swept her off her feet and—"

She elbowed him in the gut, and he took it laughingly.

"Swept off is right - right off the cliffs where she was waiting to be raped and killed."

He shrugged. "All the more reason for him to show up and sweep her."

She rolled her eyes and looked back down at the map.

"Did he sweep anyone else off along the way?"

She asked without thinking, and froze as soon as she realised what she'd said. She stared down at the map, avoiding eye contact, before his hands came in and wrapped around her waist.

"Why would you think that?"

She shifted and tried to bring back the warm, teasing side of their conversation. "Allayne thought you liked boys, so there has to be a reason for that."

He laughed at that, breaking away from her to double over, and before long she was laughing too. He was still laughing as he took her hands in his and pulled her flush against him, and he laughed into her hair too.

"Allayne," he said between chuckles, "thinks she's my older sister and would jump at any chance to embarrass me in front of pretty girls."

"Girls?"

"Girl," he corrected himself. "Singular. In fact, if you can keep a secret," he leaned in to whisper against the shell of her ear, "I think I've fallen for the toughest woman in Midgard."

She trembled slightly, and tried to hide the shudder as bristling. "Well, good luck. I hear some idiot dragon rider decided to mess with her and ended up with one leg."

After two days of almost constant whispers of love, and his proving that the loss of his leg _was not_ and _never would be_ a burden, she'd finally reached the stage where she could joke about it without a grimace of guilt following. It was him making every joke about it possible which had finally broken the dam, and now she pointed it out at every opportunity.

"What did he do end up with one leg?"

"He tried to end a war alone."

His arms, which had been resting lightly on her shoulders, came down to hold her close.

"Bet he felt like a fool for that."

"Good thing he's not alone now." She broke the embrace to point at the map again. "Meatheads?"

He nodded. "I used to know their heir - Thuggory. Good guy, if a bit 'Viking Way'-ish. He might even be chief by now - you'd like him. Actually, he'd like you. A lot. Maybe we should split up early?"

She rolled her eyes. "Two days and you're already possessive as Toothless with a catch of fish?"

He shrugged. "A lifetime of waiting, and I'm gonna need more than two days to believe this is actually happening."

She sighed and rested against him. Her head was perfectly level with his shoulder, and she leaned into it. "Am I really….?"

She didn't finish the sentence.

He didn't know what she was talking about.

"Are you what? In need of more than two days to be believable?"

"Am I… singular?"

He frowned, confused. She rolled her eyes and headbutted his chin.

"Am I first?"

His eyes widened as he finally understood, and he didn't speak for the next three minutes, mouth too busy moving against hers.

"Does that answer that?" Hiccup managed to pant as he broke away.

"No," Astrid said bluntly. "How do you… and with your tongue and your fingers, and the towel and… you know so much that I don't and I'm the one who's had the ritual baths and those conversations and…" She cut herself off, realising she was rambling.

He brushed her bangs out of her eye and kissed the scar on her cheek.

"Allayne," he said, and she had to resist an urge to kill something long enough for him to finish the sentence, "also likes you. And she said in no uncertain terms exactly what I am not to do to you, and what I should do until I figure out first hand what you like."

She recoiled in horror. "So you got the talk from a whore?"

He shrugged. "She's had a lot more sex than Gothi and Lettegar and whoever else gave you the baths. And," he leaned in to kiss her cheek again, "judging by the fact that you haven't gutted me, it seems she was right."

Astrid sighed and smiled. "The Meatheads?"

He nodded. "It's near enough to Dragon Island that we'll have plenty to train."

She stiffened. "Train?"

He nodded as if it were obvious. "They might already have dragons of their own - who knows? Then we can split up - we'll have to actually, since the Bogs would put a spike in my head if I tried to land there, and—"

"Train. Hiccup, I don't know how to train dragons!"

He glanced at her in surprise. "But… Stormfly, and—"

"That was…" she searched for the word. "Necessity. I needed her, and she was good enough to take me. If anything, she trained me!"

She glanced out through the forge to where Stormfly and Toothless were resting. Stormfly had been free to come and go ever since they'd left Rhea in France, but had chosen to stay and keep Toothless company on the ground.

Hiccup sighed and pawed at her hair. "That's all there is. You can't tame a dragon, you can't even really train it. You have to trust it, and hope it trusts you."

She didn't know what to say to that, so she leaned into him and let silence say it for her.

"We have a week," he said, running his fingers aimlessly through her hair. "Well, four days, but… then we'll have to tell Rhea, and oh gods she's going to know exactly what we've been up to isn't she?"

Astrid laughed and buried her face in his neck. "I think that's why she left in the first place."

Hiccup frowned. "Did… did my fake mother literally leave the country so we could sort ourselves out?"

She smiled beautifully and turned him around to the map. "Plans," she commanded, pushing him down into a chair. "Plans come first."

He couldn't help the hope in his voice when he spoke. "And what comes second?"

She leaned down to whisper, and danced away before he could do anything.

"Probably you."


	6. Axe to Grind (Sacrifices Outtake)

_**AN: Below is another deleted scene from Sacrifices - again, the narrative was quite different at this point, but it essentially allowed Astrid and Hiccup to spend a couple of weeks training the Berk dragon riders, together. It was cut in the changing narrative structure, but I still really like it and think it gets a lot of good character moments in.**  
><em>

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><p><strong>Axe to Grind<strong>

After a week of training, Hiccup was almost impressed with Astrid's ability to completely avoid human interaction.

She was there, every morning, to offer advice to the newer riders. In fact, she got up before him, fitting in an hour of axe training before a hasty breakfast. They trained until late at night, utilising the village torches for a completely new purpose, and as soon as the rest of the recruits tired, she and Hiccup would fly to the edge of the fleet, covering weeks worth of sea in short hours, to watch for Drago's progress. They barely had three hours sleep a night between them, and the strain was beginning to show - first on Stormfly, then Toothless and finally himself.

Not on Astrid though. Her eyes hardened, and she woke early, and she trained.

Soon after Stoick's bonding, another dozen warriors had been pulled to their cause, and Hiccup could hardly have the time to remember all their names - let alone train them individually, and realised with a jolt what he lacked.

He needed a deputy. Someone local, trusted by the people, whom he could defer to, and trust himself. Stoick was too busy learning the ideal way to crush a man's skull from a dragon's back, and while he had inspired people to the cause, he hardly knew enough about it to lead.

Astrid. It should have been Astrid.

But she was too busy avoiding people.

She would respond when spoken to directly. She would show people the correct grip on a Nadder's head spikes and how to command them to send out a precise tail spine, and would silently supervise bondings, but as soon as she wasn't entirely needed, she would go back to polishing Stormfly's scales or running Gobber through the finer details of the saddles she'd constructed. Gobber was the only one she would talk to, willingly, and even then, her interaction was strained.

They'd been separated without discussion as soon as lodgings were brought up. He was sleeping in his old loft, trying to get used to his father actually wanting to see him in the morning, and watching out the window as, in the guest lodgings next door, Astrid came and went. It was even harder to sleep alone knowing she was so close, but something like propriety stopped him. Perhaps it was the knife edge he walked between ally and savage, and trying desperately to prove that he wasn't the sort of man who would kidnap a virgin and ruin her, only to bring her home and flaunt her to her people.

It turned out he was, but it wasn't like he'd intended to.

After a week though, he spotted Drago's fleet only a week's journey from the edge of Berk's territory, and knew he didn't have time for her despondency, so he stole her axe and waited.

An hour before dawn, he was sitting cross legged on the bench of the forge, carefully shaping the patterns he'd long intended to add to the axe head. He didn't even know she was there until her fingers reached around from behind him and grabbed the handle.

"I need that."

He looked back at her, and was struck by how tired she looked in the half light.

"You need sleep."

She scowled and tugged on the handle - he held on to the head. She tried again, and he closed a fist over her fingers, shifting on the bench so that he faced her.

"What's wrong?"

She scowled again in frustration. "Do you want the list?"

He shrugged. "I'll be doing this for a while, so - yeah, if you want."

Her scowl didn't move and for a second, he was worried she was going to hit him. Then she climbed up onto the bench, crossed her legs and pressed her back against his, leaning into him without facing him.

"I can't believe I wanted to come back here."

He frowned, but didn't move. There was a reason she didn't want to look him in the eye, and whatever it was, he respected it.

"I was willing to fuck you on the cliffs if you brought me back - can you believe that?"

"Which part?"

She elbowed him in the side and laughed slightly, but her breath hitched, and he realised she was crying.

"They won't look at me. Twenty years, and they won't look at me."

Ah.

He'd seen her parents at the back of the crowd when his father had asked Berk to pick a side. He had seen them, still at the back, when they moved towards Raven Point. He hadn't seen them since.

"I saw my mother, in the square yesterday, when I was bringing Gobber measurements for your dad's saddle. And she just turned away and pretended I didn't exist."

He put down the axe and twisted around, pressing her back against his front and bracketing her between his legs. She leaned back into him, and he ran his fingers through her short hair, reassuringly.

"We always knew not everyone would join us."

She shook her head. "It's not that. I can understand them, really. Half my family were killed by dragons, and they probably thought I'd just be another name on that list. It's… they act like I don't exist, as if they blame me for being sacrificed, when they didn't say a word while it happened."

He ran a thumb along her cheek, obstentiously tracing her scar but really wiping away angry tears.

"I don't want to stay. After Drago…"

"Shhh."

He wrapped his arms around her, and she settled her hands over his. They hadn't discussed what would happen after all this - there could very well be no after, and they could be corpses in the ocean in a week, but for now, they would sit together on the bench, in an almost innocent embrace.

"Gods I've missed you," she finally murmured against his shoulder, dragging his hand down onto her stomach. "It's just - they stare enough when we're on the same island or in the same room. Imagine if we were sharing a bed?"

He leaned in to lightly kiss her neck. "They wouldn't have to know. I could climb in through your window. Or we could sneak into the wood and hold hands or something?"

He felt victorious when her face shifted into a smile. "Are you trying to seduce me?"

"Well," he said, leaning in close to her ear, "I believe you made certain offers about me bringing you back here…"

She swatted his arms and twisted to kiss him properly. Dawn was just beginning to break, but the whole town would be in the shadow of the Meade Hall for a long while yet.

"We don't have enough time," she finally sighed against his lips.

"And that, m'lady, is exactly why we should make the best of the time we have." He kissed along her scar temptingly. "Come tonight. Dad sleeps like a rock."

"Have you tested that?"

He shrugged. "If he can sleep through his own snoring, he can sleep through Ragnarok."

She smiled and twisted out of his grip, standing. "I thought you didn't appreciate it when I tried to fuck you in your sleep?"

He smiled lazily at her, glad to see some of the spark back in her eyes. "I'll make an exception." She went to take the axe, but he held it firm. "Let me finish it. Go… sleep. You need it."

It felt like another victory when she nodded, and moved back towards her temporary home.

"You can't marry her, you know."

Hiccup started, looked over his shoulder. Snoutlout was leaning against the Ingerman house, unshaven and half dressed. Hiccup swallowed at the thought of how much he'd seen.

"You can't marry her," he repeated, coming closer to the forge.

Hiccup had found an uneasy truce with his cousin - in the flurry of war preparation, there was no time to argue about childhood wrongs, or even the more important question of succession. Stoick might have constantly referred to him as the heir, but Hiccup was as uncertain about staying as Astrid was, and knew he couldn't stay if she didn't want to.

"How long have you been there?"

"Sickeningly," he said, picking up a knife and using it to clean his nails. "Who'd have thought after all those years you'd get her handed to you on a silver platter?"

"Astrid makes her own choices," he said, instantly defensive. Her axe weighed heavy in his hands, and as much as he didn't want to, he knew he could use it if necessary. "I'm lucky enough to be one of them."

"You've fucked her."

It wasn't a question, so he didn't answer. Snoutlout shrugged, and put down the knife, and there was something close to concern in his face.

"Doesn't matter. You can't marry her. No one can, especially not an heir."

Hiccup frowned. "And what if I don't want to be heir?"

"It's not something you choose. It's a birthright, a responsibility - you might have run away for five years but it doesn't change who you are. And a future chief can't marry a spoilt woman. So you can't marry her."

Hurt. That was what was in his eyes. Hiccup couldn't tell if it was hurt at his reappearance, or Astrid's choosing him, or the laws that bound them all, or the genuine affection Snoutlout had been witness to, or something else.

He shrugged, and went back to the axe. "Well, someone should have told me that before I did."

Snoutlout slammed a fist down on the counter, furious. "This isn't a joke Hiccup. You seem pretty happy to turn everything into one, but this is serious."

"You think I don't know that? You think I don't know that we could all be dead in a week - that she could be dead in a week, and I could still be alive and that would worse! So excuse me if I don't give a shit about politics and succession laws right now, Lout, but I'd like to enjoy what time I definitely have left alive, in between training you and the rest of this useless island to hopefully keep everyone alive a bit longer!"

He turned his back, and realised he was still in the forge, and couldn't really storm out since all his tools and Astrid's axe was there. So instead, he indignantly moved to another counter and went back to shaping the patterns into the metal.

Snoutlout didn't leave. After long minutes, he stepped into the forge and watched Hiccup carefully, trying to work out what enjoyment he was getting in his few free hours.

"That's hers, isn't it?"

Hiccup nodded without looking up.

"It wasn't meant to be her, you know? On the cliffs - supposed to be Ruff."

He knew. Astrid had told him, after he'd gotten offended at her guffawing laughs when he suggested everything they had was down to fate.

"Fate," she'd said, holding his face in her hands and smiling, "was Ruff deciding to find a ship full of Southerners and disqualifying herself as a virgin sacrifice. Luck was you landing in my yard in that raid. What we have is downright good fortune."

Snoutlout shot a look at the Thorston's house, on the edge of the village. "Would you have taken her too?"

"No."

There was no point in lying. "I thought Astrid had found me out. Thought she'd put herself up there and knew we could work out peace together. I thought we were going to live happily ever after in a house on a hill in a Berk where children are given dragon eggs for Snoggletog and dragons fly freely."

"And what's stopping that?"

He shrugged. "Her. And me. We're not really 'house on a hill' kind of people, it turns out."

He went back to tracing the patterns into steel.

"You really love her, don't you?"

He nodded, biting his lip to keep every crowing, victorious word at bay, because after all those years, he was the one she'd chosen, not his successful, muscly, Viking-y cousin.

"And she loves you back?"

He thought of her hand shaking against his as she wrapped the cloth bandages around them, leaning in to kiss his thumb before she covered it.

"Yeah. I think she does."

Snoutlout was silent for a moment, and Hiccup could swear he was looking out to the edge of the village again, to the uneven roof of the Thorston house.

"Must be nice."


	7. First Steps

It was a week after she woke up that Hiccup and Rhea declared Astrid was ready to try walking again.

She couldn't be more relieved - her back was beginning to ache from constantly either lying or sitting, and as much as she liked finally having an excuse to do nothing but lounge around in bed polishing Stormfly's scales, the air in the shed was becoming stale and dull. She needed to feel grass beneath her feet, to sit by the edge of the white cliffs near Rhea's cottage, to actually be able to do _something _other than wait for her body to heal.

She wasn't, however, expecting to have to do it naked.

"Oh, get yourself together," Rhea groaned once they finally worked out why she was refusing to move from beneath her sheet. "I've fed you and washed you and cared for you like a naked babe for three weeks! If the sight of your tits is inspiring, the inspiration is lost on me, girl."

Astrid kept grumbling as Rhea stripped away the sheet completely, leaving her lying bare before both of them. She squeaked as the cool air hit her skin and curled reflexively into a ball, then moaning in pain as the motion tested her injuries.

Hiccup was instantly beside her, pulling the sheet out of Rhea's hands and smoothing it back over his wife's skin, before glaring at his mother as he whispered soothing words.

"It's okay, Astrid," _glare_ "Rhea's going to go find something you can wear."

Rhea scowled back and threw up her arms.

"She can't lift her hands above her waist! What do you want to do, wrap her in the sheet and tie it there with ribbon and a bow?!"

That turned out to be almost exactly what they did.

The clothes had been given to them by Allayne, just before she and Eret left the Camant harbour, in a pile of her belongings from the life she was leaving behind, and thought Astrid might find some use for. Hiccup flushed scarlet when he realised some of the dresses were far more suggestive than he had originally thought, as they sorted through the pile with Rhea.

"I like how this one has the cord," Rhea said, demonstrating, "so you can pull that and the whole dress just falls off."

Astrid managed a half laugh as Rhea tossed it at her. "Is see through pink your colour Astrid? Or are you more a fan of see through blue, or see through white?"

Astrid shook her head. "Not white."

"Fair enough, from a virgin sacrifice. How about - wait, are you sure this is from the whore?"

She pulled a soft grey shift from the tangle of cloth, and waved at it.

"Her name's Allayne, and why wouldn't that be hers?"

Rhea shrugged. "Pretty normal for a whore's gown."

"They don't just wear - whatever this is," Hiccup objected, holding up something like a tangle of ropes and tiny pieces of cloth. Astrid, who was still covered in the sheet and half a dozen see through dresses, took it from his hands and started trying to untangle it curiously.

"Well, this should do," Rhea said, lifting up a pair of dressmaking shears and holding them to the front of the garment. "Any objections before I make the cut?"

She received no response, since Astrid had just finished straightening out whatever the piece of clothing was, and both her and her husband had fallen silent. Rhea cleared her throat pointedly and cackled at the bright red flush that spread over Hiccup's cheeks as he snatched the thing from Astrid's hands and tossed it away - not before kicking it under their bed, and hoping Rhea didn't notice.

Sweet Freya, if Astrid kept giving him bedroom eyes while holding garments that were clearly designed to cover literally nothing, he'd have to evict Rhea from the shed and—

"Alright you two, keep it decent around your mother," Rhea said bluntly before slicing the shift down the middle and picking up one of the transparent dresses to cut a wide strip from. Satisfied, she cleared away the pile of clothes with Hiccup's help and held it out to Astrid.

"Slip your arms through here," she said gently, holding the shift open like a robe. Astrid did so, wincing slightly in pain as she twisted her arms back and through the openings and giving Rhea a brief glimpse of the tattoos across her back. As soon as the dress was around her, Hiccup pulled the two flaps shut over her body, and secured them with the brighter fabric. He tied it in a careful bow, tight enough to hold but not enough to hurt her, and his hands lingered around her waist.

"Okay, now you can pull out the sheet," said Rhea brusquely, tugging at the end and watching with relief as it slipped out from beneath Astrid, leaving her in the most clothing she'd worn since her injuries were inflicted.

"How do you feel?"

Hiccup asked the question gently, still half kneeling on the bed, and Astrid nodded slightly.

"Better."

It was a difficult process, turning _better _into _standing _- when Hiccup tried to sling her arm over his shoulder, she grimaced and sobbed and needed half a flask of whiskey to hide the pain in her side. He spent the next hour or so apologising, calling himself stupid for thinking what had him walking again would work on her, until Rhea grew tired of his talk and told him to shut up while she carefully pushed Astrid to be sitting on the edge of the bed, her legs brushing the floor.

"Now," she instructed, placing Hiccup in front of his wife, "you hold her hands, and Astrid, you try to stand."

It was more difficult than it at first seemed - with one arm still bandages, Astrid could really only put her weight into one arm, with the other resting uselessly on Hiccup's wrist. Rhea remained behind the girl, a hand hovering above the small of her back as a last safe hold, as she carefully, then determinedly, pulled herself to her feet.

Then toppled forward, taking Hiccup with her.

The floor was cold, and dusty, and it made her feel so alive she could hardly believe it. Her cry of pain warped into joyful laughter, as she carelessly pulled herself into a sitting position across from Hiccup, slapping at his chest in excitement.

"Again!"

It was a harder journey from the floor, but Rhea remained on the bed, letting them figure it out themselves. It took a while - back and forth and testing what hurt and what didn't - but soon enough, Astrid was back on her feet again, swaying slightly and gripping Hiccup's hands tightly, but _standing_ none the less.

She smiles up at him, the simple action filling her with so much joy, and he leaned down to kiss her softly.

"You never cease to amaze me," he muttered, thinking Rhea couldn't hear. She could, but she didn't care - she let them have the moment, and another brief kiss, before butting in.

"Okay, let's not break our arms jerking each other off - she isn't walking yet."

Sometimes, Rhea wished she could bottle the expressions her sharp words received.

They spent the rest of the day at it - at first with Hiccup taking a step back and holding her at arms length for her to close the gap, then slowly increasing the distance and support until finally, she was stumbling half the length of the shed. At that point, Astrid insisted on moving outside, where she could feel spring around her, and as Rhea sat in the forge and worked on her own projects, she could see them repeating the same process, this time with Stormfly and Toothless as well, until Astrid was walking tall and proud and punching Hiccup in the gut for something he said.

She shouldn't be flying - they both agreed that - but it didn't stop her insisting that she climb onto Stormfly's back and see the sea from the edge of the cliffs, just as the sun was starting to set. Hiccup finally relented, and as he disappeared into the kitchen for food to take with them, Rhea couldn't resist a final warning.

"She might be walking, but that doesn't mean she's ready to have you back inside her."

He paused, and didn't bother asking how or what she knew about their intimacy.

"I can hear her moaning most nights, and that's good of you, but don't try to rush this."

He nodded, silently, and Rhea's heart swelled to know that even if she wasn't the one to raise him, Hiccup was as decent and selfless a man as there was.

And with that, she grinned wickedly and pinched him in the side.

"And don't you go breaking your arm either!"


	8. Taste

_AN: This is technically a deleted scene from Sacrifices - or rather, an additional scene, as it wasn't originally written as part of the work, but fits directly into its continuity (it takes place shortly after Chapter Nineteen). Anyway, it's pure pointless smut, just the way you like it._

* * *

><p>"No, really," Astrid said, stabbing a finger pointedly at the map around the Azure Sea. "The whole island. Just women."<p>

"So like the Bogs?"

She shook her head and swallowed another mouthful of whiskey, finishing her cup and tapping the edge pointedly. Hiccup almost spilt the whole bottle in both his eagerness and drunkenness to refill it.

"They don't have boats, or dragons - they just stay on the island. Only the smaller one though - the next one is volcanic, so they get the ash for the soil without the whole… volcano risk. It's all very...fertile."

She waved her hand in the air as she spoke, gesturing to invisible thoughts, and Hiccup was completely distracted by her long, slender fingers and the memory of how they'd felt less than an hour ago, buried in his hair.

She had insisted he get undressed once her hair was clean - that way he had no advantage on her - but once he was stepping into the water she was sliding out, all damp skin and wicked grins before she sat back on the basket he'd left and started dunking his head beneath the water.

They both knew how much it meant, even if neither said so. He could do anything and everything he wanted to show his love for her - kiss her softly, smith her axes, circle his fingers against her until she fell apart under his touch and pulled him close to rest within her - but there was something far deeper in her willingness to wash his hair. Back on Berk, where most physical displays were frowned upon, washing a lover's hair was the ultimate declaration of affection. As children, they'd all heard Snoutlout's mother gossiping the minute any news of hair-washing during washday came through, and until he'd been giving an uncomfortable and frankly disturbing talk by Gobber at age ten, Hiccup had thought it was hair-washing that bound a marriage contract and lead to children.

But it was the women who washed their lover's hair, not the other way around.

He hadn't meant to impose some tradition on her when he's sat behind her and started to soap up her short blonde locks - he had just wanted another excuse to be close to her. He liked the feel of her hair untangling beneath his fingers, her sighs slowly becoming moans, the idea that he was doing something _for her_. When he'd tried to protest, to make it clear he didn't expect her to wash his hair just because he'd had the pleasure of hers, she had dunked his head under with a push of her palm.

"Let's make this clear," she'd said, scooping up a handful of water to dump over his head. "I won't let you do anything to me that I wouldn't do for you."

It was so entirely _Astrid_ that he had come up spluttering and laughing before twisting around to kiss her, sitting naked behind him and smirking and entirely, undeniably loving him.

_She _**_loved_**_ him. _

He was still waiting to hear that on sober lips - drunk on neither whiskey or sin - but for now, he was more than content with the way she'd moaned and panted it for most of the day.

Her fingers had been quick and firm against his scalp, rubbing small circles in the soap and reminding him uncontrollably of the way she clung to him whenever his lips were on hers.

"Hiccup? Hiccup?"

She snapped her fingers in front of him, and he was thrown back into the moment - into Astrid, dressed in her spare clothes and leaning across the table at him. She still held her mug in her hand - filled over and over with an expensive whiskey she'd brought in her travels with the intent of drinking for special occasions. She'd already poured two glasses by the time he'd managed to dry and dress himself, declaring in surprisingly crude terms that his voiding of her status a virgin sacrifice was as special an occasion as any, and they had sat in the warmth of the kitchen ever since.

Discussions of the plan, she'd said firmly, would wait until tomorrow, when she was sober and headstrong and had time to point out every one of his idiotic mistakes. For now, they would drink.

And drink they had - until he'd pulled out the map to show her a cluster of islands he swore was shaped like the freckles on her back, and her eyes had lit up at the possibility of swapping travel stories. They hadn't had time since her return two weeks before to really discuss where she had been - and as it turned out, she had been everywhere.

"How are there still women there?" Hiccup finally asked when he remembered what she had been talking about. "If there are only women on the island, how do they get… more women?"

How much had he drunk?

Less than her.

"That's the secret," she said, leaning in. "If any crew of men make berth there, they're treated like gods… and I mean, the good kind of gods. Food, drink, housing… women. Sooooo many women. And when they try to leave…"

She leaned a little closer, her hand sliding up the inside of his leg from where is had been resting on his knee.

"They cut their balls off."

She shrieked with laughter at his horrified expression, hand still firmly planted on his thigh.

"Don't worry," she finally said, dragging her seat a little closer to his. "I'm not going to do that to you."

"That's reassuring," he said, voice squeaking slightly despite himself.

"No matter how tempting it gets."

His eyes were glued on her lips as she spoke. Did she have any idea what she looked like saying the word _tempting_?

"Say that again."

"Even if it gets tempting?'

When his eyes finally flicked back up to hers, she was looking at him with a glint in her gaze that said she knew exactly what he was doing.

He kissed her, because he saw absolutely no reason not to. His hand fell to her knee, thumb running against the thin fabric of her leggings, before she seemed to simply fall forward from her seat and into his lap, somehow gaining a height advantage as she sat across him.

He was hard. He knew it and, judging by the way she broke their kiss to smirk at him and grind her hips down, so did she. She kissed him again before he could think of something to say, drawing his tongue to far better pursuits than words. Her hands slipped into his hair, the same even, soft pressure she had used in the bath, and for a moment he wondered if she had ever washed him while he was unconscious. Hopefully not in a bad way - not while he was pissing and shitting all over himself, _oh gods_ not that - but if his brow was bleeding and sweating and matting his hair, and it needed washing. Her, bent over his limp form, gently kneading his scalp until he was finally clean and breathing easily. Leaning in to press a kiss to his brow, her breasts only a whisper from his back.

He throbbed against her at the though, and she swallowed his groan with a sultry kiss.

Her fingers were still buried in his hair when she broke the kiss to breathe hotly again his lips.

"I'm probably drunk," she said bluntly.

"I'm pretending I'm not."

"Bed?"

He didn't quite know what _bed_ meant. It was less than twenty four hours since bed had meant lying uncomfortably in the dark with the knowledge of her sleeping next to him leaving him alert and stiff (in all senses). As of last night, bed meant something far more tantalising - as of that day, it had meant lazy hands and soft skin and finally a chance to act out a few of the thousand things he'd dreamed of doing with her.

But judging by her tired yawn, bed suddenly meant sleep again.

She crawled off his lap, finally letting go of his hair and leaving him awkwardly hard in the open air without her heat pressing down on him. She smiled sleepily and finished her whiskey before looking regretfully down at him.

"I'm exhausted."

He didn't know whether to feel proud or disappointed.

"Can you pack the things away?"

He nodded wordlessly, accepting a brief kiss of gratitude as she wandered back towards the shed, running a hand lazily through her own hair. He made a point of _not_ wondering whether she would be reinstating the unspoken clothed sleeping rule of every night before the last, and the possibilities if she didn't - he already had enough of a problem from five minutes of grinding and tangled tongues.

He waited until he had calmed down somewhat before standing and clearing away the map and the drinks, making sure he waited long enough for her to decide what happened next. Sure enough, when he finally opened the shed door, she had made the decision for him - fast asleep, curled beneath the blanket with a telltale stretch of smooth freckled shoulder. A quick, almost shameful lift of the fabric confirmed that fully clothed sleeping - or even partially clothed - was a thing of the past.

He stripped gladly and slotted himself behind her - trying his best not to jab at her with his frustratingly still-interested erection - and wrapped an arm around her waist.

His heart swelled when, still completely asleep, she snuggled back into him and drew his arm in closer.

He dreamed of the reality he'd imagined earlier - Astrid, dressed in her travelling cloak, swinging from Stormfly's back and storming in to the healers' to find him shaking uncontrollably in his sleep. Throwing aside her cloak and sliding into bed behind him - just as she'd done on the cliffs - wrapping her arms around him and soothing his fevered mind. Finding a cut reopened along his brow, and dabbing it with her own sleeve, blotting the blood and wiping away sweat. Having him carried to the bath the next morning, washing his hair with her quick, firm fingertips…

He woke to the sound of a breathy moan beside him.

The first thing he noticed was that Astrid had managed to turn in her sleep, still nestled in his arms, her breathe warm and moist against his tattooed chest.

The second thing he noticed was her pebbled nipples, her red lips and half open mouth, the shifting of the blanket as she pressed her thighs together.

No. She couldn't be….

Astrid had never been….

Or at least, not before yesterday. Well, not much. Apart from the wicked half-naked snow sparring she'd forced him into (and he still had to repay her for somehow). And the time she'd been drunk and falling over herself and letting him braid her hair after she'd kissed his jaw. And then there was the whole cave debacle, which he felt he shouldn't count as genuine desire but still definitely did.

She shifted again, stretching, arching her back and brushing her breasts against him, making the buds of her nipples tighten further. Oh gods, how many times had he thought about her breasts - her breasts alone, in isolation to rest of the perfect bare body pressing itself into him. She leant forward further, one thigh brushing against his rapidly growing hardness, and he almost considered taking control now - wrapping a hand around himself and jerking until he could actually think straight, instead of his heart beating in sync with the sounds she was making.

_You don't have to do this alone anymore._

He shuddered at the memory of her words - the memory of those quick firm fingers working him far better than he could ever work himself - and unconsciously brought a hand up to stroke the soft skin of her hip, finding it far more exciting that any touch he could wield on himself.

She rolled her hips into him at his touch, and let out another of those hot, wet moans.

He should wake her. He should absolutely wake her… for what? Was he really expecting - after _one day_ of (admittedly incredible) sex - that he had any right to wake her from whatever pleasant dream she was having and offer his probably lacklustre lovemaking as a substitute from the clearly amazing experiences her mind was already conjuring?

"Mmm… ah!…Hiccup…"

He swallowed, and decided that yes, he was definitely going to wake her.

He moved his hand up to her waist, pressing a little firmer against the sloping flesh, and leaned in to kiss her. At first, he worried it was pointless - as her moans became firmer and the soft motions of her body only increased - before her tongue swiped along his and she broke away with a gentle moan.

Then her eyes flew open, somewhere between mortified and aroused.

"Did I just—"

He silenced her with another kiss, rubbing his palm softly against her skin. At first she was stiff, still horrified at what he must have seen, but after a moment, she relaxed into him, bringing up a hand to tangle in his hair.

The feeling brought everything back - their shared history, the bath, his imagined version of all the care she had taken for him. The fact that **she loved him****_. _**

She eased her lips away from his, eyes half lidded and oddly determined.

"You better have a good reason for waking me."

She squeaked in something like delight when he rolled on top of her, pressing her into the bed with the weight of his body and sucking on the bruises he'd left on her skin the night before. He didn't stop there - his hands were already running all over her sides, up and down and back as his lips made their way down her neck to her shoulders, then down further, to nip and kiss and suck at her breasts while he planned his next move.

His mind was full of _Astrid_, the disagreeable, aggressive, perfect woman who had saved his life more times than he deserved - who had travelled the world and trained dragons and would destroy armies for his worthless hide. Who washed his hair with quick, firm fingers, even after everything she'd already done, and who loved him enough to want him in sleep.

And the only thing he had to offer in return was himself.

She was panting and babbling incoherent versions of his name as he made love to her breasts - careful, precise motions that could only be for her, using his mouth and tongue and teeth and fingers in every way imaginable - and tried to remember every piece of advice Allayne had ever given him. He almost blushed at the memory of her standing in barely anything, gripping a riding crop in preparation of her next client, describing in fine detail what Eret did to her to remind her she was far more than a whore to him. He was certain she only ever did it to laugh at the red that rose in his cheeks from her foul words and graphic gestures, but now, for once, he had some use for all those embarrassing hours.

He was firm against her thigh - against her knee as he moved lower to draw his tongue over the faint lines of muscle on her stomach - but he ignored it, focussing on the sounds she was making as his hands slid down to knead at the skin of her ass. He looked up, chin rested against her naval, to find her sprawled across the mattress, hands rested helplessly by her head as she panted and whimpered and muttered his name to the ceiling. He slid lower, kneeling between her feet, and paused to watch her intently. He could pretend it was concern for her - not wanting to move forward without her consent, making sure she was happy with what he was doing - but he knew by now that there was very little Astrid wouldn't take from him, and the real reason he paused was in case, gods forbid, she actually hated what he tried. At least this way, he would have a good mental image for when she chopped his balls off.

That thought - despite the sight of a naked Astrid sprawled before him - was the first thing to actually lessen the bloodflow to his groin.

Her eyes opened - barely, still heavily lidded and sultry - and she spoke in a voice deprived of proper oxygen.

"Don't stop."

Her legs parted in invitation at the words, her hands fisting in her own hair, and when her thighs felt the touch of his lips instead of his fingers, the excited gasp she made was all the encouragement he needed.

He moved slowly - barely above her knee to begin with - peppering the soft flesh with kisses and gentle, careful nips as he made his way up. He could smell her - rich and smooth and earthy - and he suddenly understood why an action he had so long considered curious and possibly barbaric on Allayne and Eret's part would be so appealing. As he drew closer, the smell became heavier, sharper, and when he drew his tongue along the soft flesh of her inner thigh and hit an already slick patch of skin, he almost came at the thought of what he had just tasted.

Judging by Astrid's wanton moan, he wan't the only one.

From there, he couldn't resist - he sped up, moving his lips faster over her skin as his hands curled around her knees and held her steady, lapping up the taste he had only ever experienced on her lips, from his fingers. When he realised how far he still had to go - how far the dampness had spread down her legs, how wet she was at her centre - he moaned against her skin and moved an inch further.

His moan was the final straw for Astrid - the smooth, tingling vibrations of his mouth so close to her core - and she reached down, winding her fingers through his hair and pulling him greedily into her.

He bumped his nose against her with the force of her pull, and she saw stars.

It felt different - to look at _her_, to be on the same level as his lover's centre, to see rather than just feel - and it took him a moment to get his bearings. A moment he thankfully had, since Astrid was still thrashing from the graze of his nose against her. By the time her fingers were scrunched in his hair again, he'd found what he was looking for, and closed his lips around it - and she nearly took his head off with a sharp thrust of her hips and pull of her hands. The taste was stronger there - closer to the source - and he became intoxicated on the sound of her moans and the silky feel of her flesh and the taste - oh gods, the _taste_ - of what he had done to her. This was for him - for his lips against hers and his hands on her breasts and even her godsdammed _dream_ had been about him - so what could he do but take what was his?

The grip of her fingers faltered as he teased her with his tongue, writing her own name against the sensitive bundle of nerves at her core and feeling her shudder around him, but in the second before she broke, she pulled at his hair with those quick, firm fingers, and he came apart with her.

The deep, earthiness of her _flooded_ him - the smell, the taste, the feel of her mingling with sharp cries of his name and the sight of _Astrid_ completely lost by his mouth. He drank her in deeply, knowing she had dripped onto his chin and was smeared around his lips, then he eased off, careful of the vulnerability she felt after orgasm. He could feel his own release, sticky and viscous across his thighs and lower stomach, but he couldn't care less - he'd come for Astrid alone more times than he could count, so why should he feel shame when she was right there, in front of him, short of breath and completely satisfied?

He thought of all the teenaged dreams where it was Astrid on her knees - Astrid who wrapped her lips around him and mouthed him into oblivion - and couldn't believe how wrong he'd been.

She cracked an eye open, looking down at him between the valley of her breasts, and sighed heavily.

"Fucking stubble."

In reply, he locked eyes with her and licked his lips.

She fell back against the mattress with a groan.

"No. I'm dead. I am dead and I'm happy about it."

He laughed, and was surprised at how low and husky his voice sounded. Emboldened by his rough voice and the thick taste of her in his mouth, he cocked an eyebrow.

"You sure? You could just be dreaming."

She huffed and rolled onto her side, curling into a ball.

"I hope you already came, because I'm too dead to help you."

He looked sheepishly down at the mess he'd made, then remembered that he had been inside this woman - that any mess he'd made he had already made_ within her_ - and promptly didn't care. Instead, he crawled up beside her, resting an arm almost lazily across her waist and burying his head in her shoulder. She smelt of the soap they'd both used to wash, and as he inhaled, she stretched one arm back to tug lightly at the hair around his ears.

"I was serious before," she muttered as he drifted off, completely content with what he had. "Once I can move again. Anything you do for me, I do for you."

He twitched.


	9. Promise To Keep

_AN: This chapter follows directly on from the previous one (Taste)_

* * *

><p>She was gone when he woke the next morning, but it didn't worry him - he was more than used to waking alone.<p>

He was more surprised that she'd managed to strip the sheets from the bed and leave a pile of fresh, spare linen without waking him.

Hiccup sat up with a sigh, cold in the chill winter air without clothes or sheets or Astrid. He reached around for his prosthetic and a pair of pants, intending to make the bed and find Astrid, when he realised exactly how filthy the night had left him. No wonder Astrid had felt the need for new sheets - he'd be after a new skin if he could find one.

A shaft of light fell through the slats of the shed walls, and glinted on a shiny patch of skin across his chest. He leaned in, confused, and smelt it - deep and earthy and _Astrid -_ and was made even more aware of his need to bathe by the stirring between his legs.

How had it gotten there?

He'd fix the bed later. Now, he needed to wash - and if Astrid was already awake and taking sheets, he'd bet she was in the laundry. With a handful of clothes and a towel around his waist, he fastened his leg to make the quick freezing journey to the back room of Rhea's house.

It was empty, but judging by the steam wafting from the bathtub and the damp sheets hung over the rafters, it hadn't been for long.

He sunk into the water, carefully washing the come from his legs and lower belly and leaving the shiny, smooth patches on his face and chest until last. It must have been when she was finished, and he scooted up to hold her - no, he'd been careful to avoid her after her release, since she'd almost castrated him yesterday against the wall when he moved her too soon after she came. He was discovering so much so fast about the woman he loved that he was beginning to worry he'd forget things.

Not last night, he decided. He was never, ever forgetting that.

When his fingers were pruning and the water was tepid and she still hadn't returned, he pulled himself reluctantly from the tub - finally washing his face and chest - and dressed to search for her. The answer came quick enough - Toothless was curled by the flames of the forge (which he knew how to light), but Stormfly was nowhere in sight. He'd made tea and toasted bread by the time the bright blur of the dragon became visible on the horizon, growing rapidly until it was a flutter of wings tossing up the snow outside the forge.

Toothless shot him a dirty look, as if to say _See how she still gets to fly? The woman's melted your head, and I'm happy for you, but even she finds time for the air._

In response, Hiccup tossed him a strip of dried herring, and the dragon manage to maintain his sour expression as he ate. It definitely wasn't helped by Stormfly appearing and nattering at the Night Fury, then throwing up a belly full of fresh fish.

He could practically hear Toothless' thoughts. _I like the woman. Fresh fish, flying, fucking - she seems to have everyone sorted for precisely what they want._

"Useless lump of lard," he muttered, before his eyes were drawn from Toothless to the golden haired woman at the edge of the forge.

"I'm a what now?"

"Toothless! Toothless is - um, well I was saying - he's a useless lump of lard."

She stepped through the forge and into the kitchen, filching a piece of bread from his plate. "You should take him out later. I was going to make you come with us, but you were still sleeping like a rock when I was pulling the sheets out."

She took a bite of the bread, breathing in slightly when she tasted the honey that had seeped into it. The sound reminded him sharply of the noises she'd made, sprawled before him and panting helplessly, and he was reaching forward to kiss her when she stepped out of range, clicking her tongue at Stormfly and taking a satchel from the dragon's saddle.

"I got some supplies from the capital. Well, _supplies_…"

She opened the bag and pulled out its contents - half a dozen jars full of different liquids. He watched, confused, as she lined them up on the table with a slight flourish. When he didn't say anything, she flourished again, and he realised she was wearing her furs - both her cape and arm bands - and it was the most clothing he'd seen her in for a while.

"What are they?"

She frowned as if it were obvious. "Poison."

"Why?!"

She rolled her eyes. "For Drago. For your plan. Remember?"

He looked up sharply. He'd practically forgotten her promise to sit him down sober and run through every stage of why his plan wouldn't work - so much had happened since - and yet here she was, doing exactly that.

"First things first," she said bluntly, stealing more toast and dragging him over to the table, seating him in front of the jars before sitting down herself and speaking around a mouthful of bread. "You can't do it."

"Which part?"

"Any of it. You'll be recognised the minute you step onto Eret's boat."

He bristled. "Then I'll find another ship - or get Eret to set me onto Drago's ship as a guard—"

"He knows who you are. He'll recognise you and have you killed within minutes."

He threw his hands into the air, frustrated, because he knew she was right, but there was no other option.

"Well then who else can do it?!"

"Me."

He stopped short and stared at her. She gazed evenly back.

"Eret's been carting a son across the seas for four years. So it makes sense that the boy's mother would join him."

He opened his mouth wordlessly, trying to speak before she cut him off.

"I went to see Allayne this morning - just checking, to be sure. There's no way Eret would have told his crew that the boy is a whore's son. According to her, he's told them even less. They just know he was caught up with a woman named Allayne, and there's a child to prove it."

She tapped the top of a poison jar absentmindedly.

"So I'll slot right into the crew as her."

He finally found the words.

"If you're caught…"

She shrugged. "You _were_ caught."

He stood, kicking back his chair. "But that's different. With you… they could - gods Astrid, if you—"

She rose too, baring her teeth. "Don't act like I'm an idiot, Hiccup. I know what they could do to me, because you were meant to have done it three months ago. I've been prepared for the worst since the village decided that I was the one you'd get as a pretty toy to fuck and hurt as you saw fit. So don't you _dare_ act like I don't know what they _could_ do to me."

She took a step closer, still glaring up at him.

"But I saw what they did to you. And for all the ways they might hurt me, that's nothing compared to what they _will _do to you, if they ever set eyes on you again. And don't ask me to sit by and watch as they pull apart everything I love **again." **

He looked down at her - fierce, brutal, an unrelenting force of nature - and hung his head.

"Then don't ask me to do that either."

He was only dimly aware of the hand on his cheek before she was pulling him down to her level in a searing, sharp kiss. He stumbled slightly at the sudden motion, but her arm caught his waist and steadied him, holding him there for as long as she pleased.

Which, as it turned out, was quite some time.

When she finally pulled away, her hand on his cheek was still firm, thumb brushing along his skin in the same way he always traced her scar.

"I love you. That's why it has to be me."

By the time his brain was aware of the fact that she'd said it - said she loved him with a sober tone, the words sounding almost commonplace on her lips - he'd already pulled his arms tight around her, crushing her into him as if he could fuse their flesh. The hand on his cheek slid down his back as her arm came up around his neck, clinging to him with the same force.

He tilted his head down to press a kiss to her hair.

"So that's the plan?"

She laughed softly against his neck. "Nope. There's about forty other things we need to fix before I'm sticking my neck out for you."

He tried to mimic her casual tone. "I thought you loved me?"

"I do," she said, twisting her head up to look at him. "But I'm not going to Hel with a half formed plan and love."

There it was again - _love_. His heart lurched at the word, and she must have noticed.

"I love you," he said bluntly.

"I know," she replied, with that same teasing grin she had mastered.

He leaned down to mouth at the thin slice of neck visible between her fur, her hair and her shirt. "You're supposed to say it back."

"I already did!" she protested, trying to keep a straight face.

"I love you."

"Ass."

"What?"

"You can't just go around saying it to trick me into —"

He nipped lightly at her neck, and her response garbled.

"I love you."

"Fuck you."

"I'm sure you will." He moved his lips from her neck to her jaw, before sliding up to breathe hotly at the shell of her ear. "I love you."

She shivered slightly, and managed to find the words to stop him in his tracks.

"Is that why you can't keep your mouth off me?"

All thoughts stopped. Especially coherent ones.

Then she was reaching for the front of his pants, for the tightened seams and the laces in the waistband, running her fingers lightly against him.

"In fact," she said, sliding a pinky beneath one of the cords before withdrawing it quickly to rub circles on his lower belly, "if you can keep a secret…"

She stopped to bite her lips and watch his eyes darken.

"I might have marked you this morning, like a branded beast."

She snapped the waistband back against his stomach, but he was too affected by her words to even react. Had she - with her hands? Or - that shiny patch on his chest, it wasn't too large, so if she'd sat across him and…

Damn. _Damn_.

No wonder she had been so certain he wouldn't wake up.

She was stepping back to gesture to the poisons when he grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her back to him, sealing his mouth over hers with an almost animalistic growl. From there, it was a tangle of limbs and tongues pressing back and forth, left and right until they stumbled together back to the shed, leaving her arm bands and his shirt somewhere in the snow.

Toothless watched them move in tandem with a heavy sigh, and resigned himself to another lazy day on the ground. At least Stormfly had brought fish.

He had planned to press her up against the shed wall - just like he had yesterday, when he was proving to her that his leg was no obstacle to pretty much anything she wanted to do - when her hands clawed into his chest and pushed _him_ against the slatted wood. He tried to push back but she practically hissed at him, before burying her teeth in his neck and leaving a mark just like the ones that littered her skin.

_Mine_.

Her fingers were working at the laces of his pants when he finally found his voice.

"We should…bed…comfortable…"

She drew her tongue over his new bite mark, then the old one scarred in his shoulder, and looked pointedly at the sheets, still folded on the bare mattress.

"You wanna do _that _now?"

To make her point, she pulled his hand from the small of her back to the front of her leggings, pushing it down beneath the fabric as she finally undid the last of the laces and pulled at his pants.

"No," he managed to pant as she took hold of him, trying to beat her at her own game and push his fingers into her before she had the upper hand. "But I want to—"

He stopped short as her grip moved lower than usual - away from his length, teasing the rest of his skin, cupping him.

"You want to eat me out again?"

The words sounded so crude, so brutal on her tongue that it sent another sharp spike of arousal to his groin. He moaned, and as she grinned wickedly, he tried to remember who it is what usually uses such crude terms for such intimate acts.

Allayne.

She'd been to see Allayne that morning. And if she'd learnt that expression from Allayne, that meant she must have told the whore what had happened.

He felt another surge of masculine pride - the sort he usually only felt when her eyes were black with release - and kissed her clumsily, crushing the two hands between them.

"Yes. I do."

Her hand closed back around him, and just as he was wondering why she was still almost fully dressed, she slid down his body to rest on her knees.

"Well tough. I have a promise to keep."

Oh gods.


	10. Vows

"We should get married."

Astrid looked down at him incredulously, through the valley of her breasts to where his head rested on her naval.

"Really?"

Hiccup shifted so he was gazing straight up at her, his chin pressed pleasantly into her stomach. The ship rocked around them, a pleasant, predictable motion that only added to the comfort of their twisting, naked bodies.

"Why not?"

Before she could answer, he ran his tongue along her damp skin, tasting sweat and ocean water, and distracting himself as much as her.

"No, really," he said once she'd rolled away with a groan of frustration, her hands batting helplessly at his head. He slid up to lie behind her, curling around her bare body with his. "We should get married."

"We _are_ married Hiccup! We've been married three times!"

He frowned, leaning over her so she could see his confused expression. "Three?"

She rolled her eyes. "Three. Isn't that enough?"

He leaned in to brush the short hair from her neck and kiss along the line of her pulse. "I only remember once. Did you marry me twice when I wasn't looking?"

She growled and reached behind her, grabbing his ass and pulling him in closer to her.

"First, the tribe married me off to you."

"That doesn't count."

"Didn't stop you telling everyone I was your wife."

"Could anything?"

He blew cool air onto the sensitive spot behind her ear, and she rolled over to look directly at him.

"Second, when we did this," she said, grabbing the hand that was rested on her waist and linking their fingers together.

"I remember that," he said with an excited grin, still in awe after all this time that she loved him. She couldn't help smiling back and leaning in to kiss him softly, hair falling from around her ears to tickle both their cheeks.

"Third time," he said as he pulled away. "I want to know about this third marriage that I definitely didn't approve of."

She rolled her eyes and unlinked their fingers, then held her palm out flat towards him. The sharp white scars stood out on her heated flesh like fires in the night.

"I just woke up."

"That definitely doesn't count. If you're going to make it three, Rhea's shed should be the second, and the cave should be the third."

She shrugged and feigned nonchalance. "I don't think Rhea's shed counted."

He puffed up, indignant. "In what way does that _not_ count?"

She kept up the aloof mask. "I just wanted you for your body. Live in sin. That whole thing."

"Well, in that case—"

She didn't need the pressure of his hand on her shoulder to know she should lie back - she went willingly, and considered it fair what with what she'd done to him earlier that night. He crouched over her on his hands and knees, appraising her, and she stretched, resting her hands by her head and raising an eyebrow.

"Were you planning on doing something?"

"Only if you marry me."

She frowned, and tried her best half lidded look. "Good thing I already have."

He paused, conflicted, and she saw a genuine flash of concern in his features.

"I know, and I love you, but… time's running out, and if… if we go back to Berk unwed…"

A memory flashed into her mind - Gobber, just when they'd first returned to fight a war. _Has he married you properly? Because if he has, there's a chance you might be able to stay together._

Astrid wouldn't let all the gods tear them apart, let alone the petty gossips of Berk. She tried to keep away the memories of Stoick mentioning loudly each new baby born in Berk every time they met for dragon training.

Instead, she thought of cloth wrapped fingers, and the complete satisfaction of knowing that she was whole.

"Where?"

He started, still bent over her, and she slid a hand to his hips and pulled him down, closer but not quite inside her. He was comfortingly half-hard against her, still completely worn out from earlier, but not disinterested in the slightest.

"Where can we get married?"

His face broke into another overwhelmed smile. "So… you will?"

She shoved his shoulder. "It's not like I've said no before."

He kissed her, heavy and urgently, and she traced a hand idly along his spine as he moved his lips down, lower and lower until he came to her collarbone, still talking all the while.

"We'll have to—" _kiss _"tell them we're eloping" _kiss_ "so they'll give us the papers" _kiss_ "and we can—"

He stopped, and looked up at her.

"How about now?"

Her toes, which had been curling lightly against the edge of his stump, froze.

"Now?"

"I have - shit, hang on—" he clambered off her, reaching for his satchel and the money bag he kept within it, rifling through with half his body still rested diagonally across her.

"Here!"

He crawled back up, not before she squeezed his ass with a teasing grin, and held out his hand.

"This was probably presumptuous, considering I didn't ask, but, well, you didn't say no last time, and…"

He waited for a reaction to the two gold rings in his hand. She was still, staring at them with something close to confusion, before reaching out and plucking one from his palm.

"How did you—"

"Rhea."

Ah. That explained the pointed looks the goldsmith had given her the last time they'd visited.

She turned it over - it was oddly cool against her heated fingertips, cool and smooth, reflecting an abstraction of the cabin around her.

"Now?"

They dressed hastily, then argued about whether she should ask to borrow one of Allayne's nicer dresses, then argued about whether she should be better dressed than him, before finally stumbling out of the cabin and up onto deck with a note pegged to their door. She woke Stormfly while he tried to bribe Toothless into agreeing, and even though they flew on separate dragons to the nearest friendly town, he had rarely felt so close to her.

There was a church, or temple, or some kind a religious building in the centre of town, and they opened the door and stumbled in noisily in the middle of some somber prayers. Astrid had to stuff her fist into her mouth to keep from laughing at the dirty looks they got, while Hiccup was bent over double instead, and as the crowd filtered from the room at the end of the service, they slipped through the masses in the opposite direction. The dragons hovered by the doors, then snuck in behind them, just small enough to fit through the door

They needed witnesses, the priest said, so Astrid grabbed the arms of the last two hangers on (because apparently dragons didn't count) and placed them firmly by the alter. The priest, sensing that this was a rushed engagement - even if Astrid showed no signs of pregnancy, he could see and smell the sex on them from earlier - and he read the shortest vows he knew and blessed them with incense instead of the traditional sacrifice. The witnesses signed the papers, the dragons lit the incense and they each cut their hand and let the blood drip into a single cup of wine, which they then both drank from. When she slid the ring onto his finger, and he onto hers, there was a smear of blood on both. When they kissed, it was with the taste of wine and iron and the future.

There was a rest-house in town that they knew was kind to dragons, so they walked there, hands clasped around a single sheet of parchment. Stormfly and Toothless were put to rest, much to their relief - they knew whatever had happened between their humans was momentous, in some way, yet entirely ordinary in another, but by now, it was just a drain on their slumber. Hiccup took the chance to kiss her in the stable, away from prying eyes, and she smacked him in the chest with their marriage contract, pushing him towards the door.

He ordered the best room while she bartered three bottles of fine wine from the tavern below. They stumbled up the stairs with a basket full of food and drink against her hip and her hand rested firmly against the front of his pants, stroking and grabbing as he tried to unlock the door. When he had, she rewarded him with a deep kiss and was about to enter when he stopped her, taking the basket away and tossing it into the room. She was about to protest when he scooped her up into his arms and carried her over the threshold with a slight limp.

"Not as fun when you're getting carried, is it?" Hiccup says, smiling down at his _wife_. Astrid just grinned mischievously.

"I could get used to it."

He put her down on the bed - a fine, well constructed thing with cotton sheets and downy covers - and went to close the door. She was kneeling when he turned back to her, beckoning him closer, but when he was finally within reach it was his hand she took, turning it over between her fingers and examining the ring on his finger.

"I like this," she said, nodding approvingly. "You look claimed."

He raised an eyebrow. "I have your name on my heart and you say _this_ claims me."

She shrugged, then drew her tongue along the gash on his palm, licking the blood from his flesh and the dried smear from his ring.

"The tattoo is for me," she said possessively, drawing him in further and pulling at the ties of his tunic. "The ring is for everyone else."

He tried not to react too much to her closeness, and failed. He was hopelessly in love with her, and couldn't hide it if he tried.

"I love you," he blurted out as she ran a finger along her name, and the effect was immediate. The cool, wedding night seductress faded in an instant, replaced by an almost flustered Astrid, beaming and pulling his face down to hers.

"I love _you_."

She pressed her forehead against his, gold and tawny hair trapped between them, and let herself breathe a moment.

"I could carry."

He started slightly, pulling back.

"If you don't want to—"

She dragged him back to her, lips heavy with intention.

"I don't care," she muttered against his mouth, feeling the shuddering breathe he took in. "I…. I want this, Hiccup. In four months we'll be home, and… it won't be a problem there, it'll have a home and a family and —"

He silenced her with a kiss, unlacing her skirt with trembling fingers as his tongue ran against hers.

"Are you sure?"

She nodded, then grinned slightly. "It could have already happened. You're useless at keeping dates."

He flushed red, remembering the rush of guilt he'd felt when he remembered the moon was full, that she was at the high point of her cycle, just as he'd stiffened against her in release earlier that night on the ship. She must have known, he'd thought. She must have.

"Well, you're stuck with me," he said gladly, running a palm beneath her tunic and making sure she could feel the cold metal of the ring.

"For the fourth time," she added, then leaned back out of his embrace. "Bring me some wine."

He raised an eyebrow.

"When did you become so demanding?"

She shrugged and leaned back, sliding out of her skirt. "You're stuck with me. I want wine." She made a little shooing motion with her hand. "Go on."

He rolled his eyes and turned around, pacing the room to look for the basket he'd forgotten and the expensive wine he didn't care for.

He yelped when her hands closed around his waist and dragged him over her shoulder.

"Woman!"

She laughed as she carried him back to bed, taking a swig from the bottle in his hand - she was still laughing as she unlaced his trousers, laughing when his hands tugged at her clothing and dragged her on top of him.

"Your woman," she finally said, leaning down to kiss him and grind against him with the delicious friction of bare skin. She took his hand and laid it flat on her belly, her smile turning tender. "Yours."

His grin was disbelieving - still the smile of a man who could not quite believe the way his luck had turned. Still the smile he'd given her when she first kissed him, when she'd carried him for the first time, when she'd wrapped their hands together with bandages. The smile he gave her every day when they woke, each night as they drifted off, and every minute between he could find.

The smile he would give their children, would give her as her belly swelled, would wear as he watched her breastfeeding and singing a baby to sleep. The smile she had married, and the perfectly imperfect man behind it.

"Ours," he finally said, pressing a tender kiss to her lips, her breast, her naval.

"Ours," she agreed, pulling him close and sliding him into her, knowing that where ever her life went, he would be with her.


End file.
